


Assorted Potter rarepair drabbles & ficlets: flangst

by Lokifan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Fluff, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Seventh Year, M/M, Post-War, Second War with Voldemort, flangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-03-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2019-05-08 23:40:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 6,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14704890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokifan/pseuds/Lokifan
Summary: See title, really. These are drabbles and ficlets I wrote for various prompts and friends' requests, with a generally flangsty-hurt/comforty-'angst with a happy ending' kinda vibe. Most I'm proud of, some not so much, but I'm a completist.





	1. Cho/Marietta: Best Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Cho very carefully didn’t look at the spots, still as scarlet and painful-looking as they’d been three months ago. She focussed on Marietta’s cornflower-blue eyes – eyes that were currently filled with tears."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for jaydestarlight's request, "Cho/Marietta, focus", at a drabble-a-thon.

Cho very carefully didn’t look at the spots, still as scarlet and painful-looking as they’d been three months ago. She focussed on Marietta’s cornflower-blue eyes – eyes that were currently filled with tears.

Marietta had been there for her all last year while Cho cried and mourned and tried to find someone who’d understand. She’d come to DA meetings for Cho.

Next time those horrible boys said something, Cho was going to use a DA-taught curse to make them regret it.

Marietta’s slim body heaved in her arms as she cried. Cho stroked her hair.

Marietta drew back, her face inches from Cho’s, and gave a watery smile. “Thanks, Cho.” Then she kissed her.

Her lips tasted like salt, but her mouth was sweet. Cho’s eyes slipped shut, as she pressed a little closer –

She drew back with a shocked noise. “Oh God. I.” Marietta was wide-eyed and silent. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t!” Indignation, and Cho tried to salvage the moment they’d shared.

“Oh – I didn’t– I trust you.” This time she was the one to lean forward. Sweet silence filled her mind and thrilled her body as their lips met.

When Marietta pulled back, _Sneak_ was gone.


	2. McGonagall/Hooch: Cartography

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit of McGonagall femmeslash set during the first war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written as a birthday gift for woldy, and for the femslash100 prompt, "maps".
> 
> Hooch is called Xiomara here - both Xiomara and Rolanda are Word of God possibilities but there's no canon, and woldy usually calls her Xiomara in her fic. Plus it means famous in war, which seemed appropriate for this.

Everywhere Minerva looked in the house, she saw maps, lists, notes, little ceramic models of wizards for planning bloody attack. When she closed her eyes, she saw the same things. She dreamt of strategy, fine lines on parchment to denote hills to hide behind and dusty books that made her choke. The books left dust on her fingertips and in her lungs. It tasted like ash.

She stared down at the books until her eyes ached, looking for monstrous spells. She argued with Kingsley and Albus as they tried to find tactics that would make up for being so outnumbered.

~*~

She even dreamt about battlefields: yellow parchment covered in their plans, and the bloody mud after those plans fell apart.

“Minerva.”

The crisp voice came with cool fingers at her temples. Minerva sagged over the table with relief. “Xio.” Xiomara’s massages felt like a cool river. A stupid metaphor, but apt; it was like cool water worked itself through her muscles, which were tense as petrified wood, and let her shoulders flow from their hunch into an easy slump.

“Time to stop for the night, I think.”

Minerva could’ve disagreed with steel in her voice, but she chose not to.

~*~

Xio collapsed onto Minerva’s navy bedspread, her smile covering her face in thin lines. A map in itself, but one that called an answering smile to Minerva’s weary face.

They stripped quickly. She kissed Xiomara, their mouths hot and slippery, and stroked her fingers over Xio’s abdomen, her muscled arms.

She spent the night relearning Xio’s landscapes: the valley between her breasts, the secret corners at her hip. Victory clutched her stomach as Xio came to her tongue and fingers before falling on Minerva in turn.

Xio fell asleep with a smile on her sharp face. Minerva dreamt of it.


	3. Luna/Dean: Luna Triumphant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean’s first exhibition takes place at Malfoy Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the winning drabble for Sorting Hat Drabbles' pairing & prompt one week. The pairing was Dean/Luna, and the prompt was _art is life, and life is transformation – Antoni Tapies_.

Draco Malfoy’s motives for becoming Dean’s very public patron were shining – and transparent – as glass. But Malfoy Manor’s ballroom was perfect for his first exhibition: a honey wood expanse beneath sweeping arches of stone.

Now the room bubbled and murmured with RP voices and modulated laughter. Malfoy wasn’t mingling. He was huddled by a particular sketch, staring.

It was drawn from memory: _Luna Triumphant II_. She was thin, bloodied, in torn robes. He’d drawn those enormous blue eyes even bigger than life, like wounds bleeding tears in her pale, set face. Malfoy Manor loomed horribly in the background.

Dean had drawn three Lunas. _Luna Triumphant I_ was fourteen and painted in saturated colours, her head engulfed by the lion hat. She was bright, beaming, and unconcerned with rules: she turned from the portly wizards admiring her and slipped into the next frame.

Dean half-choked, watching as his brightest Luna stepped into the desolate charcoal landscape. The bright Luna slipped her hand into the grey, wartorn Luna’s dirty one. The grey Luna’s face broke into a smile.

The third, watercolour Luna, today’s Luna, sat on their bed and smiled at him like she was waiting for Dean to join her.


	4. Charlie/Tonks: Friendly Rivalry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of Weasley fluff. "Charlie’s never quite grown out of his competition with his brother, or out of the sense that he’s losing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for Sorting Hat Drabbles; the pairing was Bill/Tonks, and the prompt was _brother’s keeper._

Charlie’s never quite grown out of his competition with his brother, or out of the sense that he’s losing.

Most of the time, it’s friendly rivalry. They’re similar in a lot of ways: charmers with easy smiles, who did pretty well at school and escaped the suffocating embrace of the Weasley womb at the earliest opportunity. Only Bill is taller and cooler and went to Cairo, a bustling capital city, instead of a dragon colony in the back end of beyond. And he met (and _dumped_ ) a French half-Veela who was her school’s magical champion and asked for English lessons in low, seductive tones, where Charlie met surly, bald dragon tamers. And now the dickhead is standing next to Tonks.

Charlie and Bill are only two years apart, and Percy never wanted to come out with them. Charlie knows his moves; could draw a map, a manual for Bill Weasley’s Seduction Tips.

Bill’s smiling at her in a deliberate way that shows off his dimple. He’s leaning close to her as though fascinated by everything she’s saying. And Tonks is responding: her cheeks are flushing pink to match her hair and her voice is dipping low like a dance partner.

A different man might have dragged Tonks off and taken her roughly. But Charlie’s not so unreconstructed as that and besides, it wouldn’t help with this particular situation.

He walks across the living room, avoiding all the doddery relatives who want to speak to him at this Christmas party. “Hi there.”

“Charlie!” Tonks responds brightly, turning towards him instantly. Her eyes are bright, and he can’t tell if it’s from seeing him or talking to Bill or just too much of the Firewhiskey in her hands. Charlie loves that she drinks like a man.

Then she kisses him. Her mouth is hot from Firewhiskey, and the fire in his mouth makes something flare in his stomach. She pulls back, mouth smudged, and smiles close to his face.

Something eases in Charlie’s stomach. They’re similar, Bill and he. Tonks has a type.

And she’s chosen him already.


	5. Luna/Draco: Dizzy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Then she approached, walking through the dead zone around him like she was tripping on air, beaming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for a drabble-a-thon. phoenix_core requested _Draco/Luna, because blondes have more fun._

Draco stood against one wall, watching witches and wizards whirl joyously across the dancefloor. The wood was polished to a mellow shine, reflecting the bright colours of the swirling robes and the candlelight back into the bright faces.

Pain soured his stomach. No one had spoken to him all night. But he wasn’t going to back down and leave.

Then she approached, walking through the dead zone around him like she was tripping on air, beaming. “Draco.”

“Luna.”

“Would you like to dance with me?”

Caught off-guard, he swallowed, but couldn’t bear to refuse her.

For the first dance Draco could barely make himself move; he was too used to being stiff and still, so no one would notice him. But she grabbed his hands and spun with him, and he heard himself laughing.

They danced all night, until Draco’s face ached from smiling.

Draco had heard that love was like spinning until you were dizzy. He hadn’t known the important part was having someone to spin with you: so that the world devolved into a blur, just a background for her glowing face.


	6. Ginny/Neville: Sin Is Just Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny didn’t want to die with regrets. She won’t live with them either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This won Sorting Hat Drabbles one week; the pairing & prompt was _Neville/Ginny, postwar living with regret_.

The war had been over for nearly three hours when Ginny Weasley lost her virginity.

She found Neville near the burnt-out remains of the Room of Requirement. He was poking at some of the broken stone with his wand, shoulders slumped.

“Are you hiding?” she asked. He jumped, and turned to face her. Ginny found herself smiling. From under the dust and the smear of blood and the pain, Neville gave her a smile back.

“Yeah. Gran’s telling everyone how she always knew I had it in me, and lots of people want to shake my hand... I’m too tired for all of that.”

He looked it; there were purple-black circles under his eyes. With a slight shock, Ginny realised she hadn’t noticed them before. They always seemed to have circles under their eyes now. Her mental image of Neville always included a bruise or two.

There was one on his cheekbone, deep purple and tender-looking.

“Might be time for bed, I guess,” Neville said. He clambered over the broken floor towards her. “I’m just going to sleep in my dorm, I want to be here tonight.”

“Me too,” said Ginny softly. She watched Neville stretch, the muscles in his shoulders and back shifting, and considered. “My family’s gone home already, except for Ron. We said we wanted to stay tonight.”

“Of course,” Neville said. His dark eyes were pained, and he touched her wrist. The warmth of his skin against hers was shocking; Ginny hadn’t realised how cold she was.

“Are you... I mean, do you want...?”

“No,” Ginny said, swallowing back the grief. That was for tomorrow. “I don’t want to talk about F-Fred.” Her voice wavered; but she met Neville’s eyes and felt steadier. “I want... I just want to go to bed.” Her voice dipped low like a dancer.

“Mmm. Let’s go.”

Ginny put one small, freckled hand up and gently touched Neville’s bruise. He didn’t flinch, staring down at her with wide eyes. “I meant... I just want to go to bed. With you.”

“But what about Harry?” he said immediately. Ginny almost laughed, it was so typically Neville.

“I... I saw him. And it wasn’t...” Ginny couldn’t find the words. “I didn’t want to cheat on him or cling to you because I was lonely. I would have been ashamed of myself, and I didn’t want to die with regrets.”

“So...”

“He didn’t want me to fight with him,” Ginny said, shocking herself with how true the words were, the realisation coming to her as she spoke. “I’ve tried so hard all year, helped lead a resistance, had to be tough because you were the quiet, strong one and Luna was the kind clever one and I was the warrior, so I couldn’t let on that it hurt. He doesn’t know me. It’s not his fault, but I... I wasn’t going to die with regrets. But I’m not going to live with them either.”

Ginny kissed him, and felt forever spark against her lips.


	7. Ginny/Neville: Boudicca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny reminds Neville of Boudicca, flame-haired warrior queen. She likes that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for - and won! - Sorting Hat Drabbles’ intra-house free-for-all; the prompt was _house common rooms/dormitories_.

“You remind me of Boudicca, you know.”

Ginny turned from her practice dummy to give Neville a puzzled look. She was glad to do it: the Room of Requirement’s dummies were nicely challenging, but she liked fire curses and the smoke smelt horrible.

“Boudicca?”

Neville nodded. “She was an Iceni queen – it was a Celtic tribe,” he added. “Gran made me study them. I think she liked their approach to things – lots of curses, and swearing vengeance on anyone who harmed the family.”

She wanted to stand between his wistful smile and the world, so nobody else could see that naked look on his face.

“Boudicca’s husband was a puppet ruler for the Romans. When he died they conquered the region properly. Boudicca was publically flogged but she didn’t give in. She led the Iceni in an uprising and burnt London to the ground.”

Ginny’s eyes widened. “Wow.”

“She had red hair like yours, too. And her name meant ‘victory’.”

“Sounds like my kind of woman.”

“Mine, too.” The brave attempt at suavity was ruined by a furious blush.

Ginny hid a smile, and turned back to the dummy. She sent another fire hex at it, grinning when the flames caught.

She’d love to watch Voldemort’s Ministry burn.

~*~

She kept the idea of being like Boudicca close to her, a reassuring weight in her mind like the feel of her wand against her thigh. Being brave, and determined, and savage in her desire for victory. She’d always been like that for Quidditch, and someone had to be now. Neville was brave but so soft-hearted; Luna was brilliant but lacked the killer instinct. Ginny had to be like Harry. Like Boudicca.

When Amycus used the Cruciatus on her for endless minutes she got up with ringing in her ears. Beyond that, though, she could hear Neville’s soft voice saying _she didn’t give in_.

She fought on, a lieutenant to her general and desperate not to stop fighting. It was so hard and almost absurd to lead a rebellion from inside a school, trapped in the routines of lessons and homework and meals in the Great Hall. But they couldn’t stop.

It was half-two on a Thursday night when she returned from drilling the fourth-year DA students. The Gryffindor common room was deserted, even the insomniacs in their dormitories.

Neville was sitting in front of the fire, eyes half-lidded. He glanced up as she crossed the room, and energy lit his tired face. “Ginny.”

“Hi. Listen, you need to talk to Ben Eagleton. His Disarming – ”

“I will,” he interrupted, “but let’s not talk about it now. In the Room of Requirement it’s all go, all war and suffering. I like being in the common room. It feels like nothing’s required.”

Ginny stared at him. Then she came and sat on the arm of his chair.

He stroked her hair, and they looked into the flames. When she kissed him, all she could hear was the quiet crackling of the fire.


	8. Hermione/Luna: An Extraordinary Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione can’t find out how to restore her parents’ minds. Luna is there to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for - and won! - Sorting Hat Drabbles, and the pairing & prompt was, _Hermione/Luna - mistletoe and nargles_.

Hermione had always known that sometimes you needed to do bad things for the right reasons. Besides, she was going to fix it: now she had time, now the war was over.

Only it wasn’t quite as simple as she’d thought it was, and Hermione didn’t dare tell Professor McGonagall what she’d done to her parents. She couldn’t discuss it with Ron and Harry; Ron had never understood Hermione’s driving focus on her central goal. Harry wouldn’t understand the way she’d made herself an orphan.

Before long, she had regained that pale, dry-eyed look everyone else was steadily losing; she haunted the library searching for an answer. Luna wandered through sometime in October, and asked what Hermione was doing.

Hermione told her only because she was drooping with exhaustion and sick with the secret, but Luna looked proud to be Hermione’s confidant. Two days later, she returned with a stack of parchment.

“My mother was an extraordinary witch,” she explained. “She researched mind magics. I owled my father and he sent her papers.”

Over the next month, working side-by-side, labouring long into the night until they fell asleep in their books and woke with tangled hair and faces smudged with ink, they found the answer.

Hermione couldn’t admit to Luna that she had never given her enough credit. But when she asked Luna to come back with her for Christmas to help perform the spell, Luna smiled like she’d heard _everything_ Hermione couldn’t say.

It had worked, and now Hermione stood in the glow of Christmas light – not firelight, not in her parents’ bright, north London Muggle home – under mistletoe, watching Luna’s ash-blonde hair pale against the deep red of her jumper.

“Should we move?” Hermione asked, trying for some faith. “I hear mistletoe has Nargles in it.”

“It’s all right. I can fight them off.” Luna smiled. Hermione stared into those knowing grey eyes, and pressed her lips to the smile.


	9. Guilty: Harry/Pansy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy is sent to Azkaban for treason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for Sorting Hat Drabbles (and won Mod's Choice!) for the pairing & prompt, _Harry/Pansy - for what it's worth._

“Guilty.”

Pansy flinched. The tiny movement made the chains clink, and made Harry’s stomach drop.

He’d never liked Pansy Parkinson. But she hadn’t done anything, not really. And it took its own kind of nerve, to stand up in Hogwarts’ Great Hall, surrounded by people who thought he was a saviour, and say they should hand him over.

Now she’d been convicted of treason – the all-purpose charge for colluders. She’d spend her young adulthood behind bars.

She had grey eyes, and black hair, and a scornful look. She reminded him of Sirius.

 

The newly human guards led her out. Harry leapt up, and pushed through the crowd of journalists wanting a quote. The corridor was empty but for Pansy and her escort.

“Pansy!”

She turned, and he saw the half-frantic light in her face fade when she realised it was him.

“For what it’s worth... I am sorry.” The scornful way she looked at him made it feel like a lie.

At last she nodded, her red mouth pursed. “I’m not.”

 

Harry had half-forgotten Pansy Parkinson. When he first saw her standing in the Ministry atrium he did a double-take, trying to work out if it was really her.

She was wearing a thick fur coat. It went only to her waist, with sleeves to her elbows, and exposed how thin she was now. She was curling her lipsticked mouth at the receptionist.

There was something glorious about Pansy, the hollow cheeks and shadowed eyes and too-thin wrists; it was in the way she made all of it, from the shorn hair to the slightly brittle walk that characterised anyone whose joints had spent six years in Azkaban, look natural. Look more than natural: look magnificent.

As if she’d put it all on, just part of the dark glamour that surrounded her, closer to her skin than the fur coat.

He was walking towards her before he knew what he was doing. “Pansy.”

She turned, and black, soundless rage filled her eyes. “Potter. You do not have permission to call me by my given name.”

“I’m – sorry.”

“I’m not,” she half-hissed. “I’m not. You know what, Potter? I’d do it again.”

“Erm – ”

“I keep getting told about rehabilitation. Help to become a better person. Perhaps I don’t need that help.” Her eyes were spitting fire, her neck taut with anger, and Harry had no idea what to do. “I made the decision that the lives of two hundred children mattered more than pretending you could win. I was not in possession of all the facts, and – who could’ve known you’d win? And if you hadn’t, who would have said I was wrong?”

Her voice was controlled, but the words spilled out like she’d been waiting seven years to say them.

Harry didn’t say _you’re beautiful when you’re angry_ , but he wanted to.


	10. Astoria/Parvati: Pearls Don't Bring Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parvati and Astoria grow up not quite together. Angst warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for Sorting Hat Drabbles for the pairing & prompt _Astoria/Gryffindor - string of pearls._

Parvati and Padma have known the Greengrass girls for years. Their families are friends, though those bonds were strained to breaking point with the onset of war. Astoria, sweeter and more intellectual than her older sister, would have long, obscure conversations with Padma about their respective reading. Their mingled voices would babble like a brook, their laughter at classical puns filling the nursery.

Parvati and Daphne played with dolls. Daphne stole Parvati’s favourite purple shoes, that were meant for her doll. But her mother always said that rude little girls did not get cake, so Parvati smiled grimly.

Midway through sixth year, Parvati was sulking by the lake. Lavender had gone off with Ron again, even though Padma said he’d been a dead loss at the Yule Ball and he didn’t –

“Hello.”

Astoria’s voice. She was just fifteen and had the coltish look Parvati was beginning to lose. She smiled and plopped down next to Parvati, nudging her shoulder with hers. The warmth of the contact was startling, outside in a Scottish spring. “What’s wrong?”

Parvati ranted about the stupidity of girls who fell so foolishly for boys. Boys could not be trusted with precious things. Did Astoria remember how Longbottom broke that doll of hers, a long time ago?

Astoria nodded, her blue eyes sincere. She seemed somehow on the edge of laughter, but that only made her company more appealing after months of Lavender’s sniffles.

So the two girls found a friendship they’d never had before in anything but name. As the war drew closer, and finally invaded the castle; as friends ran like rats, fleeing through tunnels and gutters; as the news grew ever grimmer and they all began to wonder if Harry was dead already, Parvati felt herself glow from the inside. Like a candle.

No, Astoria is the candle, Parvati decides. She’s asleep now, curled naked in Parvati’s bed. They could never have done this before, but in the new Hogwarts it’s easy. Astoria’s milky flesh glows, pale and luminous and warmly real in Parvati’s arms.

Pale and luminous as the pearls Astoria accepts from Draco Malfoy in May.

Still, their affair pushes the world away. Until spring of Parvati’s eighth year, when Astoria turns seventeen.

Parvati runs away from Astoria’s beam and shining ring. She flees for the dormitory where she and Astoria curled round each other.

She wipes away tears, and smiles down at the string of shining pearls curled smugly on her pillow.

Parvati wears the pearls to Draco and Astoria’s first anniversary party.


	11. McGongall/Hooch: Sentinel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Eve during Deathly Hallows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Twelve Days of Christmas ficlet for kellychambliss, who requested ‘Minerva/Hooch, Christmas Eve.’

Minerva felt the presence behind her before she heard it. Her muscles tensed, but then she smelt the inevitable grass stains under no-nonsense soap and let herself relax. Xiomara came up behind her where she stood at the bannister, watching the Great Hall below; Minerva could almost feel her warmth through their winter robes.

“Come to bed,” Xiomara said, her usual brisk tones softened by tiredness.

“Not yet. Sev -- the Headmaster isn’t back yet. I want to know he’s in his office.”

“Filius is on duty now. He’ll make sure nothing untoward happens.”

A pause. Minerva didn’t quite manage to unwrap her fingers from the bannister. “I know.”

Xiomara said quietly, “the students have gone home, almost all of them. And he’s not been very successful at catching the Army in the act.”

“I know,” Minerva said on a breath. She felt sometimes that she was becoming one of the gargoyles from Hogwarts’ Gothic edifice: calcifying into a stolid, eternal guard. One just as mute and helpless.

Midnight arrived on quiet chimes sounding in the dark air.

“Happy Christmas,” said Minerva quietly. She kissed Xiomara on the cheek.

“Happy Christmas. I suppose now’s the time to hope for a special child, and light in the darkness.”

She raised a sardonic eyebrow, and found a smile. “We’ve been lucky before.”


	12. Dean/Seamus: What You Can Get Used To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean’s family Christmas is a bit crazier than what Seamus is used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Twelve Days of Christmas ficlet, for angelbabe_cj, who requested ‘Dean/Seamus, (holiday) chaos.’

Seamus hadn’t known he had so many expectations of Christmas until they all fell apart.

In his family, they went to midnight Mass, woke up fairly late, opened their presents and then shared a cooked breakfast. Christmas dinner was at half-three, after they heckled the Queen’s speech.

In Dean’s family they woke early to open their stockings (well, Dean did, which woke Seamus) and then went to church. Seamus was used to the solemn ritual and and stained glass windows of his parents’ parish church; they sang the same hymns every year, which had been translated from Latin more than a hundred years ago. The sermon was hushed and serious.

This church was full of people in kente cloth and they sang hymns Seamus didn’t recognise. He kept tripping over his tongue when the familiar litany used an unfamiliar phrase, and before the sermon they brought a donkey in. Halfway through there was a dance. He found it all a little difficult to cope with.

Well, he liked the donkey. It had soft brown eyes and was very calm about the children who wanted to pull its ears.

Then they went back to Dean’s parents’ house. Dinner was to be at one o’clock, apparently, and presents wouldn’t be opened until around four: Dean and his sister Jen were chastised for cheating. (Jen gave Dean part-ownership in AFC Wimbledon; he gave her a West Ham scarf. They got caught due to jokingly doing down each other’s teams.) Dean’s sisters cooked while someone’s husband did the washing up. Seamus had planned to offer to help, but he backed away from the noise and chaos of the kitchen and went in search of Dean.

Dean was sitting cross-legged in front of the coffee table with his nieces and nephews playing raucously around. Dean was drawing.

Seamus dropped onto the sofa behind him. “I don’t understand how you can concentrate with all this going on.”

Dean finished a line and then turned to look at him, one side of his mouth drawing up in thought. “It’s what I’m used to. And I like it -- being around all the people and noise and things going on. Especially after being on my own, you know, during that year.” Seamus nodded. “It’s amazing what you can get used to when it’s where you belong.”

Seamus caught Dean’s niece Ama before she could run headlong into the coffee table and smiled. “Yep.”


	13. Oliver/Percy: Viciously Adorable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’d think Oliver would have the advantage in a snowball fight. You’d think wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Twelve Days of Christmas ficlet, for themightyflynn, who requested ‘Oliver/Percy, snowball.’

When Percy had suggested a snowball fight, Oliver’d been delighted. It wasn’t often he ended up in Hogsmeade with its proper load of Scottish snow any more, and Percy wasn’t usually a fan of physical confrontations.

Oliver should’ve been suspicious.

Percy was kind. But he was conscientious and ambitious and had a poorly-hidden viciously competitive streak. And those traits sometimes, er, snowballed. And now Oliver was reduced to hiding behind a tree while Percy pummelled him with snowballs thanks to a newly invented charm.

“I give! I give! I surrender!” he yelled.

“I’m just getting warmed up!”

Oliver ducked as snow hit him from all sides. “Cheater!” he yelled, half-choking on snow. “You’re just like George sometimes!”

The snow abruptly stopped. Oliver looked up blearily, the world blurred by the melting snow on his eyelashes, to find Percy coming through the churned-up snow, glaring. His chest was puffed up in indignation and his horn-rimmed glasses were steaming up. Oliver kind of couldn’t bear it.

“How dare you,” Percy said.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said. “You’re much more adorable than he is.”

Percy’s face had softened until he heard the word adorable. “I’ll show you adorable,” he said, voice artificially low, and then actually _growled._

 _Yes you will_ , Oliver thought, chest about to burst from cuteness. But he had the sense not to say it, and enjoy being pressed against the tree for kisses instead.


	14. Pansy/Ginny: Finding The Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pansy doesn’t need to be led into temptation: she can find the way herself. And Ginny Weasley doesn’t take much finding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for Sorting Hat Drabbles; the prompt was _Pansy/Ginny - temptation._

Pansy thought of herself as a bad girl. She didn’t need to be led into temptation: she could find the way herself.

And Ginny Weasley hadn’t taken much finding: she was right in the Unspeakables. Looking seriously down at secret documents through the fan of her long lashes, hexing enemies of the state with her clear voice rising above the din, shaking out her scarlet hair. And her breasts were stupendous.

But somehow when Pansy tried giving her the dark-eyed glance, or leaning seductively against an office wall, or suggesting in a low voice that they have dinner, her throat seized up and her muscles froze. Every single time.

Then Ginny turned to her on a Wednesday afternoon and said, “are you ever planning to hit on me?”

 _Say something!_ Pansy shouted internally. _Say something or you will NEVER get into her bed!_

“...”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “I got bored of waiting for Harry, you know. But you’re fun, and hot. Let’s go for a few drinks tonight, and maybe afterwards we’ll go back to yours and see how limber our line of work really makes us. All right?”

Pansy nodded, and finally dredged up a seductive smile.


	15. Luna/Dean: Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After spending so long yearning for Hogwarts, Dean wants to be outside, away from the stone. So does Luna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for angelbabe-cj, who requested _Dean/Luna, ribbons and flowerpots_.

It was on a walk after lunch that Dean found Luna. She was sitting cross-legged against Greenhouse Three, in rampant disregard for physical safety. He sat down next to her in the dust, fitting his back against the cool glass; it would, Dean felt, be simply unsporting of the universe to kill either of them at this juncture.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Luna smiled at him. She was surrounded by little boxes spilling out bows and ribbons and bright beads. Flowerpots sat among them, blooming around her like terracotta flowers. “I’m decorating flowerpots. Tonight is June’s first new moon, the first new moon since the anniversary of the Battle.” Luna said the word _battle_ light as air, so that it spilled from her lips without any of its usual pained weight, and Dean could have loved her for that alone. “That means little Vinceres will want to mate tonight. They need enclosed spaces that are bright and colourful, like a celebration. So I’m going to decorate these and leave them by the greenhouses tonight.”

Dean had never heard of Vinceres, and he doubted very much that Professor Grubbly-Plank had either. He paused.

“Do you want some help?”

Luna’s smile burst forth on her face, bright and startling; it left Dean blinking like he’d looked into the sun. “Yes please, Dean!” She looked over her equipment, and found a small paintbox and a jam-jar full of water. “If you could paint things on them - it doesn’t matter what, it’s just the colour and the talent that attracts Vinceres - that would be wonderful!” She passed him another jam-jar, this one full of stubbly paintbrushes. As he took it, Dean felt the chill of her fingers. He wanted to take them in his, rub them until they were warm. Instead, he sat and chose the colours for his first design: an abstract swirl of blue and gold.

Luna told him about Vinceres. The buzz of bees, and the rustle of the Forbbiden Forest’s trees talking to each other, mingled with her voice. Dean concentrated on the flowerpots, his eyes on his work, although warmth spread through him from where Luna’s knee touched his.

Paint smudged his fingers and dripped down his forearms, and the ground was hard from the unScottish weather. But he didn’t consider suggesting they go inside. After Dean’s months on the run, months when he’d dreamt of nothing but being inside, and warm, and safe, he now yearned to be outdoors. It felt safer, now, to be somewhere where he knew he couldn’t be trapped. For all that Dean had spend so long missing the faded, rich colours of Hogwarts’ tapestries, now he wanted greens.

He glanced sidelong at Luna. She was bent over a flowerpot, frowning as she tried to affix a plum-coloured ribbon to its crown. Her blonde hair was tumbled around her face. Dean remembered the way that when Luna was inside, the grey of Hogwarts’ stone seemed to reflect itself onto her face, washing her luminescent face with grey, and he thought that maybe she felt the same.

They didn’t talk about that, though. They sat and waited for the flowerpots’ paint to dry while the sun warmed them right through. Then they glued on sequins and ribbons and beads, putting off going inside, while the sun turned orange and rose-pink. Dean told Luna about watercolours, and she told him about Snorcacks. He created an elaborate sequin-studded Milky Way on one flowerpot while Luna’s blonde hair blushed with sunset colour.

Their hands met as they reached for one flowerpot. Dean froze as Luna turned enormous blue eyes to his. She blinked at him slowly, and Dean felt caught: an animal in a trap.

But Dean had seen enough of Luna to know that she was quite capable of calming any animal, whether wild or domestic or something in-between. It was because they knew they were safe with her. Dean closed his eyes and waited for the kiss.


	16. Harry/Scorpius: It's Too Early For This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Scorpius? Care to explain why all my trousers have turned to leather?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the harryscorp100 prompt, "halo".

“Scorpius?” Harry strode awkwardly into the kitchen, because the leather trousers he was wearing were too stiff for him to move properly. “Care to explain why all my trousers have turned to leather?”

Scorpius looked up from his cereal – multicoloured, sugary rubbish, Harry kept telling him it would rot his teeth – with bewildered grey eyes. “How strange.” He looked impossibly innocent, the morning sun setting his halo of pale hair to gleaming.

Harry rolled his eyes, and kissed the top of Scorpius’ head. “If you’ll put the spell on yours too, I’ll leave it like this for a week.”

“Deal!”


	17. Unrequited Sirius/James & Draco/Harry: Parallels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unrequited love down the generations.

Potter had never looked so happy and handsome. He was impeccably dressed, even if his black hair was its usual mess. Behind the glasses his eyes were lit up with joy. And he’d finally discovered the ability to dance. He and his gorgeous red-headed bride were obviously having the time of their lives on the dance floor.

His best man watched. _I’m his best friend. I have to be happy for him. It was obvious the whole time at Hogwarts that they are perfect for each other._ Tears stung his eyes, but he fought them back. Ugh, what if people saw him crying and thought it was because the wedding was ‘just so beautiful’ or something? The wedding was awful – obviously done to her tastes, with barely a sign of the groom.

_No. I won’t be selfish any more. I can be kind. I can let him go._

He smirked at what his parents would say. The groom’s best friend and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. They must be having fits, that he’d back the Order instead of those who shared his pureblood heritage. And if they knew that he loved the groom in an utterly non-platonic fashion? That he adored the man with everything he was and had, that even now he was fighting the urge to beg him to leave the redhead, no matter how pretty and brave and talented, to choose him instead?

They’d try to disown him all over again.

Laughing eyes met his grey ones. The groom gestured. _Come out and dance! Why aren’t you partying with us? I’d have thought you’d be after anyone you could get!_

Sirius Black sighed and went to dance.

Twenty five years later, so did Draco Malfoy.


	18. Hermione/Draco: My Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So I told Ron and Harry,” Hermione said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for Sorting Hat Drabbles; the pairing was Draco/Hermione and the prompt was _my mistake to make._

“So I told Ron and Harry,” Hermione said.

She was naked, lounging on cotton sheets with her arms crossed under her head. Draco was drinking in her breasts, examining the stretch marks and the dark shape of her nipples and the wonderful, heavy curves, and her voice was calm. It took him a moment to register what she’d said.

“You what?!”

“I told them about this.” Hermione waved a hand between them; the gesture somehow took it all in. How he’d made sad eyes at her, sitting pale and drawn in the Ministry cafeteria between hearings as he fought for his father’s soul. She’d bought him coffee. She’d been aggressively competent, her arms full of legal papers and her eyes full of the certainty of self-reliance; her hair smelt lovely.

And he’d known that if Hermione helped him, he could save his father from the Kiss.

So he’d charmed her – more by his failure to be suave than by his wit – and ranted about the mishandling of his father’s trial. Her passion for justice and his big grey eyes had done the rest.

But if her friends knew –

“What did they say?” _Are you going to listen?_

“That you’re here out of some ulterior motive, that you’ll hurt me. That this is a mistake.”

“But you didn’t listen,” Draco said, wanting reassurance.

She smiled at him, her eyes chocolate-dark, sweet and close. “Even if it’s true, you’re my mistake to make.”

His throat closed up; his face froze so that he could barely smile, though his soul was singing.

_I need to make my own mistakes. Not my father’s._

“Hermione, I need to tell you something.”


	19. Dean/Seamus: Strokes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When Dean asked his best friend to sit for him, he hadn’t expected this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for kuri-taichou, who requested "Dean/Seamus".

When Dean asked his best friend to sit for him, he hadn’t expected this.

Helping arrange Seamus’ body on the bed had made him shiver with brief tension as brown eyes met blue. But it had passed.

Now...

The pencil seemed to be caressing Seamus’ skin as it stroked across paper. When he shaded the tight shirt, Dean could almost feel warmth under his fingers. When he filled in the crotch, glad his skin was too dark to expose his blush, Dean saw Seamus shift subconsciously.

Dean swallowed, and resolved to ask if he could try ‘life’ drawings next time.


	20. Severus/Draco: Subspace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftercare: Draco’s sunk in his own mind, but Severus’ voice anchors him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for snape100’s challenge: going to Wikipedia, clicking ‘random article’ and writing a drabble around whatever you get. I got "dopamine receptor".

After his orgasm, Draco went limp, his breath sobbing out. Severus came in short order, and withdrew. With the removal of his bruising grip on Draco’s hips, Draco curled facedown on the bed, his face close to the thick knots of rope around his wrists.

Severus was talking. Draco shut his eyes, letting thought slip away: his body was buzzing, and the world was far away. But Severus’ deep voice was murmuring in the background, and his hands were on Draco: cleaning the wounds on his back, untying the rope, touching his face. Draco opened his eyes at that last.

“Are you all right?”

“’Course. You were... dopamines? Endorphins?”

“All the wonderful things making you feel as you do now.”

“That’s you,” said Draco, frowning. Severus chuckled and withdrew. But he kept talking, the low susurrus of his voice a comforting constant over the clink of metal as Severus put the toys away.

When they went to sleep Draco usually pressed shamelessly up against Severus, demanding attention. On nights like this, exhausted and mindless and smiling, he simply lay still when Severus lay down next to him.

Severus always pulled him into his arms though. So that was all right.


	21. Severus/Draco: A Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Severus Snape had always considered himself to be a lifelong bachelor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for marriage equality.

Severus Snape had always considered himself to be a lifelong bachelor. When he was small, the only example of marriage he saw were his parents, and he could not imagine being his father. Pretty, ferocious Lily had made him reconsider – but then she married another. They were loud and boisterous and nauseatingly in love.

Severus did not want to be part of an annoying, giggly couple, melting and drooling all over each other as if they were about to slump too far into each other’s bodies and become one. Severus’ spine was fused into straightness by years of stress and self-control and solitary learning. He couldn’t be a newlywed even if he wanted to.

Or so he’d told himself through the years of filling his brain with academia. So he’d told Draco when his lover, looking shaky, brought up the subject of marriage.

“Mother wants me to marry,” Draco had said, his eyes on his soup.

Severus stiffened, rage flooding him easily. “I see. So you are to run to some charming socialite with candy-floss for brains – ”

“No,” Draco snapped, his steely eyes suddenly meeting his gaze. “You know perfectly well Mother accepts us. But you sort of tilter on the edge of respectability as it is, and so do I unless we get married.” Severus could hear the hint of hesitation but he kept speaking: Draco was too much the entitled public schoolboy to stop demanding what he wanted. “It’s not going to make any difference to our lives here, and Mother will plan most of it, and she’s much too elegant and astute to make things frilly.”

There was an edge of desperation in his voice now, and a line on his forehead. Severus knew his expression was frozen. “I’m not asking for a monstrous rock or anything. You needn’t be sentimental. But Mother keeps asking and I can’t keep saying not now, don’t make me tell her you don’t want me – ”

Severus swooped, one hand on Draco’s lower back and one at his nape, gathering him suddenly to his feet and into his arms. He kissed Draco, then said, “you know I want you.” His voice almost caught.

Draco smiled. His smile was always sweet; at close range it was devastating, a weapon at point-blank range aimed and bringing Severus down in a moment.

“And if your mother finds it so terribly important... I suppose we can marry.”

Draco’s face shone.

For the months between then and the wedding Draco constantly reassured him: nothing would change, nothing at all. Draco would have no new expectations and they’d keep living as they always had. His life would be the same. And Severus nodded.

But after the wedding, and the honeymoon, when they were back at Hogwarts and living their lives as ever... Severus sometimes glanced at the ring while stirring a potion. It was burnished gold, ancient and shining on his potion-stained finger. Draco wore its twin, and it bore the weight of forever.

Life was not, in fact, exactly the same.


	22. Draco gen: Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU (& H/D pre-slash, possibly): Voldemort has underestimated Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for dracoharry100's challenge, "wrath".

’m Draco.

There’s a surprising amount to learn from my first name; people forget that, reacting only to my last. Potter is different. I like that.

Draco is Latin: ‘dragon’.

The only characteristic all dragons share is that they’re untameable. And that you shouldn’t anger them.

I saw dragons on holiday once. They were asleep and it’s amazing how harmless they looked. Then they noticed us in their territory, and _roared._

Funny. Voldemort is obsessed with Hogwarts. Yet clearly, when he chose to allow my father to rot in jail, he forgot to consider its motto.

_Draco dormiens numquam titillandus._


End file.
